This is going to be bad for Romney. There are a lot of weird and creepy things about the Mormon faith that will cause the average voter to see Romney as unacceptable.

The re-baptism of famous dead people and magic underwear are really just the tip of the iceberg.

I find it interesting what kinds of things people rule out as "whacky" after accepting the idea of an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing god. Why can't god give you your own planet? There's an infinite number of galaxies and solar systems and planets, and god knows about all of them and can do anything, so why not?

I find the idea of god and heaven and hell equally strange. But it seems to me that once you accept the god hypothesis, you don't have a whole lot of ground left to say "what? That's insane" regarding theories of the afterlife.

Lando Lincoln: You really need to look into how Joseph Smith formed the Mormon Church. If you learn how he formed it and come out of that and say, "Yeah, but...I still think the Mormon Church is just as believable as any other religion" then either you're a gigantic idiot or you are trying to fool yourself.

I guess I wasn't clear on this, but I don't believe in Mormonism. And I think it's pretty common knowledge that the Mormons are making this up as they go along ("I just had a vision! God wants us to take multiple wives!" "It's becoming increasingly unpopular to marry multiple women, so God just gave me a vision! That thing he was OK with is now wrong, even though God is all-knowing and can't make mistakes!" etc. etc.). I'm saying that when Christians look at an idea like "all the good people get their own planet after we die" and say it's crazy, they're not applying the same standard of proof to the idea that "all the good people go live in a magic kingdom with all the people they love and are forever happy."

I think we happily point out that all the crazy stuff from Mormonism and Scientology is hands-down crazy because they're such recent inventions that we still have records telling the other side of the story - the court documents showing Joseph Smith was arrested are one good example. But then the same standard of skepticism is not applied to comparable ideas from more mainstream, ancient religions because we've all grown up hearing stories about turning water into wine and healing the infirm and whatnot.

I'm saying that once you accept the fact that there can be a being that seems physically impossible to our current understanding, it takes some nerve to pick and choose which magical things said being is capable of and which ones are nuts.

Mugato: Well you can at least admit that for someone who does believe in some sort of religion could be true that it is less likely that the ones that you can directly trace back to a swindler in the last century or so is the right one.

Failing that, you have to admit that Scientology that outright charges people for knowledge of their "religion" is the most dubious of all of them.

We agree on both of these counts, yes.

Religious thread you say?

Will there be cookouts?

Code_Archeologist: This is going to be bad for Romney. There are a lot of weird and creepy things about the Mormon faith that will cause the average voter to see Romney as unacceptable.

The re-baptism of famous dead people and magic underwear are really just the tip of the iceberg.

But you get your own planet when you die, so that is super awesome.

Code_Archeologist: This is going to be bad for Romney. There are a lot of weird and creepy things about the Mormon faith that will cause the average voter to see Romney as unacceptable.

The re-baptism of famous dead people and magic underwear are really just the tip of the iceberg.

Not much is likely to put off more voters than the (R) after his name.

gimmegimme: I just want to know if they have baseball on the Kolob-like planet I will receive:

[files.abovetopsecret.com image 640x491]

And what if I don't want my wives there?

Pretty sure that's how Homestuck ends.

I think voter are confused. They hear Mitt Romney's name on TV but when they get into the voting booth they see Willard "Mitt" Romney and they get suspicious.

Lumpmoose: It makes Mormonism sound like a zany combo of Christianity and Scientology. Anything religion with "endless celestial sex" can't be all bad.

Isn't it? It was kind of the Scientology of it's time.

Corvus: Lumpmoose: It makes Mormonism sound like a zany combo of Christianity and Scientology. Anything religion with "endless celestial sex" can't be all bad.

Isn't it? It was kind of the Scientology of it's time.

So was Catholicism. And Judaism. And animism.

Code_Archeologist: There are a lot of weird and creepy things about the Mormon faith that will cause the average voter to see Romney as unacceptable.

Yeah, and I don't think those odd things are that widely known as of yet. I think many people think Mormonism is just yet another boring version of Christianity.

Did someone say "The Summer of More Men?"

When will they release ads equating him to JFK for also having a strange religion?

PonceAlyosha: Corvus: Lumpmoose: It makes Mormonism sound like a zany combo of Christianity and Scientology. Anything religion with "endless celestial sex" can't be all bad.

Isn't it? It was kind of the Scientology of it's time.

So was Catholicism. And Judaism. And animism.

Really they believed you go off and live on other planets? They don't allow none believers to go to their church services? It's a bit different.

Amazing, amazing book. Recommended reading for all.

Koalaesq: [ecx.images-amazon.com image 300x300]

Amazing, amazing book. Recommended reading for all.

Seconded.

Just now?

They've been running stories about his religion for months now.

Does subby live under a rock?

Corvus: PonceAlyosha: Corvus: Lumpmoose: It makes Mormonism sound like a zany combo of Christianity and Scientology. Anything religion with "endless celestial sex" can't be all bad.

Isn't it? It was kind of the Scientology of it's time.

So was Catholicism. And Judaism. And animism.

Really they believed you go off and live on other planets? They don't allow none believers to go to their church services? It's a bit different.

Way to take that point the wrong way. All of those are "weird" offshoots of other religions. Christianity is an evangelical mutation of Judaism. Judaism is a henotheistic mutation of earlier semetic polytheism. Animism is a mutation of being able to assign agency to inanimate objects. In this case, Mormonism is a "weird" mystucak mutation of American protestantism. They are not the first or the only such group, just the only one that persisted from the 1800s.